Alarming Predictions
by Andrewmalt
Summary: Unfazed by the boring everday routine of his job in retail, Michael discovers something very sinister within the product lists he deals with.


13

_**ALARMING PREDICTIONS**_

"_Stop!, playing with my delirium!"._ Michael could not help himself. Tuning his alarm clock-radio to his favourite station was not effective. Not effective for getting him out of bed in the morning. He would often find himself stuck in the same routine. Promising that he would get out of bed after this one song was finished. Although sometimes he would slip back into a light sleep that could easily be interrupted by a dramatic tempo change in song, or the crossover to a news report. The fact of the matter was, in less than ten minutes his nine-to-five shift would commence, with or without him. The latter sounded a lot more appealing.

He staggered down the hallway barefoot. Welcomed by the harsh cold the winter would bring to his feet from the wooden floorboards. He soon realised it would be more efficient to stop off at the nearest Seven Eleven for breakfast. His morning routine for getting up was nearly complete. All that was required was a last minute search through yesterdays washing for a pair of socks.

Through the automatic sliding doors Michael made a bee line for the nearest bin in front of him. With lungs compressed he sucked out the last remaining drops of his liquid breakfast. He figured he needed every last ounce of sustenance he could suck through that straw in order to make it through the morning. At least until lunch time he thought, when the imminent feeling of hunger would return. Discarding his now dishevelled remains of breakfast he looked up to the effervescent glow of the store signage. There it was in plain view, his workplace.

Working for a popular discount department store wasn't exactly the dream career he had hoped for, or a career at all for that matter. Retail wasn't one of those categories he would have ticked when he'd answer quizzes in high school which were designed to help him discover what type of career path he should pursue in the future. Any of the clean, happy, glow once portrayed by the polished white floor, the blinding fluorescent bulbs or the countless labels and brands of products invading his view had all lost there sheen. What must have been eye-catching and attractive to customers entering this store now seemed bland to him. Michael now knew only too well the art of product placement and just how sinister everything in this store was setup to pull customers in and convince them they were "Living big for less".

However his position in the store was not one that directly helped sell products. Nor did he even work a position at the registers where he could relish in everyday human contact. Michael spent most of his working days in the Back dock. During the Winter months it was a cold desolate and dusty refuge. So cold that managers who were simply passing through would wear jackets to withstand the chill of the concrete floor and the bone-cold steel girders that would numb the skin upon contact. Michael was aware that he would have a lot to gain from bringing a jacket into work. But he never found enough motivation due to the fact that any of his jackets would look stupid on him thanks to his oversized polo-shirt with his works insignia. Any jacket he owned could not compete with the length that his polo shirt had, which reached deep and far past his belt. Michael attributed this as the probable cause of the two outbreaks of a cold he had suffered this winter.

Details about Michael's actual role in the store were still a bit sketchy. It was a brand new position that had only been recently assimilated among other stores nationwide. Even the managers weren't sure of exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He was the excess product co-ordinator. His main duties involved organising all the stock in the Back Dock. Most of his work was guided by product lists which he would read off in order to organise and re-arrange products into their correct places. It was a job with its occasional challenges and hurdles but recently it had become a dull lifeless excuse for a job. On most days he found himself daydreaming or thinking about his life in perspective and just what his own life had to do in the big scheme of things. However, events from today would ultimately change his view on a lot of things in life. His grasp of fate and reality, would take a turn in a much more twisted direction.

It all began this fateful day as he was going about his business checking his lists of stock. He had already siphoned through what he thought was a considerable amount for the day. His job required him to check which stock from the Back dock could be moved to the shelves from lists that would be printed out on a daily basis. Whilst double checking a list he had completed yesterday he once again came across an anomaly. Something that was askew. An item by the name of _'Mjcardarst 250609'_. Michael was usually a perfectionist when it came to finishing off a list and would never leave a single item unchecked. However this one was testing his patience. He had looked through possible matches on the store's stock item system, but found nothing. Surely it was a type of card that had been missing from the shelves for months? Minutes of searching had unearthed nothing new. He started to ponder why he was working so hard for a company that could only afford a part-time wage for him. His thoughts suddenly allured to the so called "World Economic Crisis" that had been dominating the world's headlines. Amidst this crisis he remembered that the retail industry had made significant profits during this time thanks partially to the government's implementation of the 'Economic Stimulus Package'. He often asked himself "Why couldn't his company just afford to employ him for an extra eight hours a week and give him a full-time wage?" Michael came to the conclusion that he wasn't going get any further today on figuring out his little dilemma that was the unknown product. He clocked out on the high-tech Kronos machine and headed back home. Back to his house that was a mere 5 minute drive from his house, give or take another 2 minutes thanks to peak hour traffic.

Working a part-time job was dismal in many ways. It gave Michael sufficient money to live off. But at the same time it gave him a lot of spare time, spare time in which he couldn't afford to spend any money because his work did not give him enough hours. Though if he had enough hours at work to earn enough money to spend on social outings, then he would have less time to spend money on social outings. Either way he looked at it, money and time would probably always have an eerie way of cancelling the other one out. That night Michael retired to his bed with his mini television blaring. The illuminating glow from the television made his eyes sore and tired. He was bored and tired but not tired enough for sleeping yet. Maybe his sister was right when she last reminded him that lying in bed with the television on does not help you go to sleep faster. Still he was adamant on testing her theory. Just then the screen went blank, sinking him into complete darkness. Suddenly the channels logo appeared on the screen. Clearly the channel was having some technical difficulties. The channel returned back to normal broadcasting. The late night news was on. Michael was sick to death of the media attention this dead popstar was getting. It was equal to the publicity he received whilst alive. The popstar too was probably sick to death, which would explain a lot. However those were probably the only two things him and this popstar had in common. Well that and their first names. Just then something clicked. That mysterious item in the product list, it finally made sense to him!

Today was another, far from the norm. Instead of waking up to a familiar tune on the radio, Michael was awoken by the stern high pitched sound of his clock radio alarm. Instead of hitting the snooze button, he sprang out of bed. His socks, shoes and work clothes were all laid out in one pile beside his bed. For once he was going to make it to work on time. He looked avidly in his rear-view mirror whilst reversing out of his front yard. He stared back at himself in disbelief as to the reason why he was in such a hurry to get to work this morning. Through the sliding doors he walked almost bumping his broad shoulders on them whilst they were still retracting. The spring in his step caught the attention of the shopkeeper half awake behind her counter watching with mild amusement. Michael maintained a steady pace with his head down as he passed through the store's entrance not acknowledging anyone at the registers or the usher. He weaved through the women's apparel section in a strategic way that avoided any oncoming customers asking for assistance. After punching in his number on the Kronos login machine he headed straight for the main office. Michael pulled out his papers from his pigeon hole slammed them on the nearest desk space, plonked himself on a swivel chair and went to work syphoning through the product lists he had amassed over the last few days. He feverishly skimmed each line using his index finger as a reference in case his brain couldn't keep up with how fast his eyes were reading.

Five minutes into his frantic search, and Michael was starting to believe that this item he was looking for might have been a figment of his imagination. After double-checking every list he had in front of him, Michael had accepted defeat. This item didn't exist it was something made up in his head, bought on by a lack of sleep and fatigue he had been going through at work. Utterly disappointed Michael stood up and shoved his lists back in his pigeon hole. In doing so he nearly slipped and fell over something misplaced on the floor. It was one of the sheets from his pigeon hole. One he hadn't checked yet. Michael looked through this list in anticipation. There lo and behold was this mysterious item. There it was in plain sight _'Mjcardarst 250609'_. Michael checked his phone for a note he had saved the last night from when he had his epiphany. After he read the note it only solidified his previous beliefs. This product name and number was a prediction, one of Michael Jackson's death and its cause. The numbers being the date of his passing, the _'mj'_ being his initials and _'cardarst'_ being the abbreviated term for cardiac arrest. His eyes averted to the top right hand side of the page for the print date. It was printed on the 20/05/09. As shocked as he was, Michael was open to the suggestion it could be a mere coincidence, or simply his imagination getting the better of him. He tried his best to endure the rest of his work day but his mind was full of questions, he became completely distracted. By the end of that shift Michael decided he would take all his product lists home and see what else he could discover. What other dark premonitions could he find?

That night Michael lay in his bed with the television blaring with a dishevelled pile of product lists in his lap. He was ready to relive the magic, adamant to find another prediction. Armed with a pink Staedler he went to work looking for any product code that looked even slightly suspicious.

'Breee-beeeep , brreeeee-beeeeeep, breeeeee-beeeep', 'Thud!'. Michael slammed down the snooze button considerably hard pushing the alarm-clock off his bedside table in the process. He looked down at his bed-sheets to discover a ravaged mass of product lists scribbled on with pink highlighter. Michael franticly clumped them together jumped into his work clothes and headed out the door. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding some liquid breakfast , he drove to work suddenly realising he couldn't remember much from the night before.

At work Michael was distracted. He felt like the rest of his body was on auto-pilot doing his job whilst he couldn't help thinking about those stupid product lists. After four hours his wait was over. He sat in the tea room with his lists and a Subway 6-inch sub. Any other worker passing by probably would have thought he was extremely passionate about his job however the truth was the complete opposite. These codes and numbers weren't making any sense to him. Whatever he thought they were last night just weren't jumping out at him now. Michael scoffed down the rest of his sub finally satisfying that hunger that had been building up for four hours. He started to think that maybe none of these predictions were making sense because none of them had happened yet. Though trying to follow any type of logic at the moment seemed pointless now that he started believing in product lists that predicted the future. Little did he know that three of these product codes would alter his grasp of reality once again. That following night one of them revealed themselves in the form of a devastating sandstorm that swept through Sydney. Michael instantly recognised it as _'Sandstrm23092009'_. The other eerily natural event was that of an earthquake that happened overnight in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. This was recorded as _'Sthestqake23092009'_. After crossing off another event that had come to fruition Michael realised they all appeared on the same page. He didn't think much of it that night, only that it seemed convenient that these predictions were all appearing in the same place.

The next morning Micheal woke up with a considerable positive spring in his step. Instead of being rudely awakened by his clock radio, the sunrays peered through a gap in his curtains blinding and waking him. As he sprang out of bed he mused to himself "Another day another prediction". When he made it to the sales office at work he suddenly remembered another significant event that was going to happen in his life, in less than two days he was leaving this job. He had made the conscious decision two weeks ago that his time was up in this place. No more annoying customers and no more tedious tasks, he was going to start afresh somewhere else. Looking back at events that had occurred in the last few days he thought it was almost a shame that he was leaving just as things started to get interesting. Just then his thoughts were interrupted by an announcement over the store's loudspeaker telling him to pick up a call on line 102. The lady with the annoying bogan accent uttered "Sorry love, but there's a spill on the main action aisle in front of toys, could you please clean it up for us?". With a heavy sigh and the drop of the headset he remembered one of the many reasons he had grown to hate this job. As he headed for the door he bumped into Tim. This bleached blonde, beady blue-eyed teen was an up-and-comer at this store. After dropping out of school he had been steadily working his way up the ranks. Michael was now looking at the future excess product co-ordinator. Today was meant to be Tim's induction into the new role and Michael was meant to be showing him what he would be doing for this new position. Unfortunately, they were both unaware of this.

Michael returned from mopping. With his list in hands he went along doing his job as per usual. Walking down the hard, uncompromising concrete floor of the back-dock, he was glad his feet soon would grace it for the last time. Within the last few weeks he had begun to get little niggling pains running through his back and knees. He was afraid of going to a physio to get it looked at for two reasons. One, he was afraid of it being something serious. Two, he was worried it wouldn't be serious at all so he would inevitably waste his hard earned money for someone to tell him there was nothing wrong with him. As the hours passed on Michael became increasingly bored. Un-scrunching his treasured product list from his back pocket he had another quick look over it. As his eyes scanned down the page he found something else eerie. Whenever he looked at the product codes that had proven to be real predictions he realised that there was a pattern taking form. The true predictions seemed to appear every fifth line. Going by this pattern, he found the next logical conclusion in this now sinister looking list. It appeared to be the very last entry and it read _'Backdckclpse23092009'._

Just then, Michael was interrupted "Mate could you give us a hand for a sec". It was Jack, the Back Dock delivery co-ordinator. Although they both shared the same workspace Michael hardly ever took notice of him because of his quiet presence, except on the odd occasion when he would ask Michael to help him move deliveries in and out of the Back Dock. Michael followed Jack just outside the roller doors of the back-dock as they began to move boxes in. He was greeted by an unusually harsh cold blast of wind and rain on his face. It was always a surprise whenever he walked outside because the Back dock was so barren and quiet he'd have no idea what the weather was like outside. Just as Michael walked back outside to pick up the last box he noticed something a little unnerving. There were a few hairline cracks in the foundations of the concrete that held up the back dock walls. There was literally water gushing out of them. "Cheers mate", said Jack. Michael had just finished helping Jack out when another announcement was broadcast over the store's P.A system. _"Ksssshhhh!_, could Michael please go to the manager's office, Michael to the manager's office." "What now?" he sighed, as he started walking towards the manager's office.

As Michael made his way to the manager's office he continued to ponder why he was being summoned. The last time he saw the manager in his office he was lectured for ten minutes about how his "skills and expertise were still needed here" and how it was foolish to leave the job given the current economic climate and how hard it is to get a "steady job these days". Maybe he just wanted to say good-bye and give him a good send off and thankyou for all the time he'd spent working for this company. Whatever the reason, Michael was gearing up for an awkward conversation. The store manager at the best of times was someone who he always found hard to communicate with. He usually spoke with general terms and was never really specific with anything he asked Michael to do. If he did manage to articulate well, he would end up using technical terms that only an employee who read the training induction book would understand.

Michael's knock on the door to the office was immediately followed by "Come in". As he walked in he was greeted by the site of the store manager playfully swivelling on his office chair with his hands flat-palmed, rubbing them together as if he was about to do something mischievous. "No need to sit down mate, I'll be quick", said the manager just as Michael began to lower himself down onto the opposing swivel chair. "Look, just wanted to say it's been great having you here and all the best with whatever else you decide to do". Michael was about to reach out for the ceremonial parting-of-ways handshake but once again he was interrupted. "Also, thanks for showing Timmy around this arvo, it's good to know someone with your experience was showing him the ropes today". Michael swallowed nervously. He suddenly thought to himself "So that's why Tim was here today", it all made sense to him now. I assume you've shown him all the correct procedures for getting stock in and out of the Back dock as well as changing the values in the ISP system?" Michael just nodded sternly. "Brilliant!, and one last thing, there's no need for you to come in on Monday, you can leave today if you like. In fact you can leave right now if you want to." The store manager said this with an unusually emphatic tone, the likes of which Michael hadn't seen before. Although the reason soon dawned on him as he made his way out of the office. During that conversation, Michael had managed to sneak a peek at the papers lying on the Managers desk. One of them just happened to be a drawn up table with all the new pay rates for workers after the new workplace agreement was introduced into the store. Michael realised the Manager was happy to let him go so soon because he'd be able to save money on wages, now that Tim was taking over the position of stock co-ordinator. Tim was roughly two years younger than Michael and at least three dollars cheaper by the hour if his memory served him correct.

Michael clocked off on the Kronos machine for the last time. He waved and said goodbye to employees he didn't know the names of, for the last time. He made his way down the store's main aisle for the last time. Just as he could see the stores' entrance in sight he was abruptly cut-off by Tim. "Hey man, I was just wondering if you could just show me where the product lists were".

"Sure thing" Michael replied with an awkward grimace and a heavy sigh. "Just a little while longer and you're out of here" Michael thought. He walked into the back-dock for the last time, handed Tim the product lists and stormed out with a slight grin on his face, knowing full well he had got away without training Tim and would never have to.

"Wait, Michael!". It was too late. Michael had already left before Tim could ask him another question. He considered chasing after Michael but decided against it. After all he'll be back from his lunch break, _or so he thought_. Tim studied some of the product lists in his hands. He didn't really understand how to read them which is why he needed Michael's assistance. As he filtered through them one caught his attention. It was an old sheet probably weeks old by now with folds and crinkles in it coming from all directions. He tried to make sense of some of the shoddy highlighted lines and notes on it. Here in plain sight he could see the predictions Michael had found over the last few weeks. Written alongside the product codes were the events Michael had noted, the predictions that rang true. Tim looked at them with slight amusement and bewilderment when he realised their significance. He looked at the very last product code that was highlighted. It was the same one Michael had pondered over for the last hour with little success. The code _Backdckclpse23092009___didn't make much sense. He checked his digital watch for the date and time, then looked around the Back dock. It suddenly clicked. Tim's eyes widened, his jaw dropped at the thought of what this code could mean. "Surely it wouldn't collapse now", he said to himself. Just then he heard a delivery truck powering its way down the service ramp. He could see small fragments of dust and cement unsettling from the foundations that held up the roof. "Don't panic, this always happens when a truck drives past" he thought to himself. As the truck stopped the small vibrations in the roof continued. More and more dust started to drop from a hairline crack that was now beginning to gape and widen. The small rumbling noise started to echo throughout the Back dock becoming louder and more frequent by the second. Tim dropped the lists and bolted for the nearest exit.

Meanwhile, Michael chuckled to himself as he made his way to the store entrance. "If only Tim knew what he was in for working for this company" he thought as he passed through that entrance for the last time as an employee. _"Rumble, Rumble, Crack!"_ Michael stopped abruptly and looked around to see if he was the only one who noticed it. Other customers suddenly stopped what they were doing as well. The violent rumbles carried on for another few seconds until they reached a sudden end. "Another earthquake?", Michael exclaimed to himself. He shrugged it off and kept on walking. On the way to his car he started to ponder on all that had happened in the last few days. He started to think maybe I was just imagining things. If it wasn't for him being at the right place at the right time he would never have begun to believe product lists could predict the future. In fact the more he thought about it the more he started to realise that any of those product codes could have been predictions. All he had to do was look at them and use his imagination. It was only because he wanted those predictions to ring true that they appeared to be real. Michael drove home. He proceeded to kick off his shoes and change out of his work clothes for the last time. He lay on the couch in awe of the realisation he wouldn't have to work at that place ever again. Michael switched on the T.V. to find a breaking news report being aired. "News just in, a shopping centre in Forest Hill has suffered a major structural collapse thanks to the earthquake that took place at 2:00pm this afternoon." "The most fatal structural damage taking place within one of the department stores, here the entire Back dock has collapsed. So far no casualties have been reported."

Andrew MaltezosFolioProfessional Writing and Editing


End file.
